Clashes broke out Monday between two U.S.-backed groups in eastern Syria, leaving three gunmen dead and raising tensions in the region where hundreds of American troops are deployed, opposition activists said.

The clashes raise concerns of more divisions between U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters in eastern Syria that borders Iraq and where the Islamic State group once enjoyed wide presence. U.S.-backed fighters play a major role in targeting sleeper cells of the Islamic State group that still carry out deadly attacks.

One of Libya's rival prime ministers said Monday he has suspended his foreign minister a day after Israel revealed that its chief diplomat met with her last week — news that prompted scattered street protests in the chaos-stricken North African nation.

Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who heads the government of national unity in the capital, Tripoli, also referred Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush, for investigation over the meeting, which was the first ever between top diplomats of Libya and Israel. Mangoush fled to Turkey following the Israeli announcement of the meeting, according to a Libyan foreign ministry official.

Three Republican members of the U.S. Congress have made a quick trip into opposition-held northwest Syria in the first known visit to the war-torn country by American lawmakers in six years. They urged the Biden administration and regional partners to keep up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The roughly one-hour stop was a signal of the significant support on Capitol Hill for the opposition in Syria's long civil war.

The Israeli and Libyan foreign ministers met secretly in Italy last week, Israel's Foreign Ministry said, in what it said was the first-ever meeting between the country's top diplomats.

The meeting between Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Najla Mangoush, foreign minister of the Tripoli-based government, marked a small breakthrough for Israel's government, whose hard-line policies toward the Palestinians have led to a cooling of its burgeoning ties with the Arab world.

Israeli air strikes on Aleppo airport in northern Syria caused the grounding of flights on Monday, Syrian state news agency SANA reported, citing a military source.

During more than 12 years of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

Jihadists killed at least 11 soldiers in northwestern Syria Saturday when they detonated explosives placed in tunnels dug underneath army positions before attacking them, a monitor said.

Rare protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government show no sign of abating with demonstrations reported in a string of towns in Daraa and Sweida provinces.

Israel's far-right national security minister lashed out at supermodel Bella Hadid on Friday for criticizing his recent fiery televised remarks about Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In an interview earlier this week with Israel's Channel 12 following two deadly Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the occupied territory, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir argued that his right to freedom of movement as a Jewish settler outweighs the same right for Palestinians.

French investigative magistrates on Friday ordered former president Nicolas Sarkozy and 12 others to go on trial on charges that his 2007 presidential campaign received millions in illegal financing from the government of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The national financial prosecutor, Jean-François Bohnert, announced that the decade-long investigation has been formally closed. The trial will run from January to April 2025, the statement said.

The Danish government on Friday said it will propose a law that would make it illegal to desecrate any holy book in Denmark, where a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists has sparked angry demonstrations in Muslim countries.

Denmark has been viewed as a country that facilitates insult and denigration of the cultures, religions, and traditions of other countries, the government said.